The Baker Street Letters (5 page)

The hearing had taken longer than he'd intended, and it was almost ten when he reached the street outside the Law Society building.

The parade of black suits moving up Chancery Lane from the Strand—the male barristers in wigs and dark suits and the occasional chalk stripe, the women in black skirts, with long braided hair under their white wigs—had reached its morning peak.

Reggie stepped back into the shelter of the entryway to ring Laura and was relieved to find her still at home.

“I can't talk long,” she said. “I'm not nearly packed.”

“Has Nigel rung you?”

“That would have been nice,” said Laura, “but no. Why? You sound . . . perturbed.”

“The final disposition of his review before the disciplinary tribunal was this morning,” said Reggie, “and he's nowhere to be found.”

“Well, that's odd.”

“The hearing's chaired by Breckenridge,” he added, “and Breckenridge has a memory as long as his nose. If Nigel doesn't respond soon, Breckenridge will take it as a snub, and he doesn't take snubs lightly.”

“You must find Nigel and tell him.”

“I don't know that it will do any good. He's a grown man; if he wants to toss his career away, I don't know that I can stop him.”

There was a long pause at the other end of the line, which Reggie interpreted as Laura waiting for him to say something more sensible. When he failed to do so, she spoke again.

“Well, you are his only brother,” said Laura, “so I'm sure you know best.”

Reggie surrendered. “I'll check his office personally,” he said. “When he wants to convey something without having to hear my response, he'll sometimes leave a note.” Now he paused.

“Was there something else?” said Laura.

“I would like to see you before you leave.”

“That's sweet,” Laura said brightly. “But you need to find Nigel, and I can't miss my flight.”

“Stop at chambers on your way. We'll get a bite, and you'll still make your plane.”

There was a pause, then Laura said, “Fair enough. You know how I hate airline food.”

Reggie arrived at Baker Street at midmorning. Clerical workers from the mortgage company that shared the building were still arriving at work, walking through the glass entrance and past the broad marble columns, carrying white paper sacks that smelled of cappuccinos and croissants.

Reggie was already annoyed at Nigel; and hunger, as Laura
would have reminded him, made him more so. He tried to keep that bit of self-knowledge in mind as he got out of the lift and headed toward Nigel's office.

He was halfway there when a commotion became apparent. A cluster of office workers from Dorset National had come upstairs to take a look at something, and Reggie soon realized that the object of their attention had to be in Nigel's office.

As Reggie approached, the group stopped trying to peer in past the closed blinds and dispersed.

Reggie tried the door. Locked.

He looked in through the corner edge of the window, as the crowd of gossips had been trying to do moments before.

Now he could see why they had gathered.

Only a portion of the room was visible from this angle, and even that was illuminated only by the residual corridor light around the edge of the blinds—but it was enough.

Reggie saw that the drawers on the tall file cabinet had been yanked with such force that they lay open on bent hinges. And all the books on the shelf had been swept off onto the floor. Papers were scattered everywhere.

Nigel had gone off again.

His favorite print of the American West dangled from its wall frame like a flag at half-mast—damage that Nigel in his right mind would never have done. And just barely visible in the dark corner above the top edge of the file cabinet was an empty shelf where Nigel's prized Remington bronze had been on display.

“Odd, isn't it, Mr. Heath? I didn't know quite what to make of it.”

Reggie turned with a start. He hadn't seen Ms. Brinks come up next to him.

“Don't let anyone near,” he said to her.

Reggie took a key from her, opened the door, stepped inside alone, and shut it quickly behind him.

He stood just inside the doorway and looked left to right to take it all in. Everything was chaos—folders, forms, and legal papers of all sorts tossed about; all the books dumped to the floor, spines broken and flattened. Everything that could be had been torn, gutted, dumped, or bent.

Everything but Nigel's hearing notice from the Law Society—that document was folded over and taped securely to the near corner of Nigel's desk, with Reggie's name written on the back of it in blue felt pen.

Reggie detached the document and unfolded it.

There was a short note written on the inside. It was unquestionably in Nigel's hand, and it said this:

 

Can't make hearing. Sorry. Just let it go.

N

 

As he read this, Reggie heard the door latch turning behind him.

“I said no one,” he called out.

The door opened anyway. It was Laura.

“You shouldn't invite me to brunch and then tell me to sod off,” she said. She stepped inside. “Do you know you have people gathered about as if—Oh my.”

“I pushed him too far, didn't I,” said Reggie.

“What do you mean?” she said.

He handed her the note Nigel had written. “You said it yourself—he only got out a month ago. I leaned on him just a bit—and now this. It's just the same as last time. He's trashed his office, and by now I'll bet he's checked himself into the asylum again.”

“Recuperation center,” said Laura, reading the note.

“Whatever.”

She gave the note back to Reggie. “Well,” she said, “if he doesn't want to be a lawyer, I guess you can't make him be.”

“Agreed.”

“But I think you're wrong about what's happened here. I think it's a burglary.”

“What is there to burgle?”

“I don't know, but—” Laura stopped suddenly. Her nose wrinkled.

“What?” said Reggie.

“That smell,” she said.

She walked toward the other side of the desk, the side that had not been visible through the window.

She stood near the shelf where the Remington bronze should have been. Then she looked downward, behind the desk.

She gasped and put her hand to her mouth.

Reggie crossed to the other end of the desk, following Laura's stare. Then he froze.

On the floor behind the desk was the bronze of American Indians hunting buffalo—a replica, but even so not inexpensive by Nigel's standards—and something that would never be found on the floor of his office. But that was merely odd.

What stopped Reggie and Laura in their tracks was what lay next to the bronze and the damp, thick scent that accompanied it.

It was Ocher. Or at least had been. He was lying silent and still on the floor, and with pupils fixed as stone.

The bronze Remington sculpture was coated on one long side and a corner with something dark, reddish, and crusted around the edges.

“It is . . . it is Ocher, isn't it?” said Laura.

“Yes. You aren't going to faint, are you?”

“Why on earth should I faint?”

“You're rather leaning against the file cabinet. I thought perhaps it was for steadying.”

“I'm trying to look casual. For your secretary's benefit. I'm afraid she'll hurt her nose, mushing it up against the window like she is, and—Oh, too late, here she comes.”

Ms. Brinks was in the doorway. Before Reggie could stop her, she stepped up to the desk and tried to lean over to see what Reggie and Laura were looking at.

“Oh!” said Ms. Brinks. “Oh my.” She jerked backward at first, then just stared. “Is he . . .”

“Yes,” said Reggie. “Please go out and ring the police, will you? And make sure no one else comes in here.”

Ms. Brinks exited, and Laura knelt along with Reggie over the body.

“Should we try . . . I mean . . . that resuscitation thing?”

“I'm afraid that ship has sailed,” said Reggie.

“You're not saying that simply because you never liked him, are you? I mean, I can do it if you don't want to. Although I think I heard him say once that he eats kippers for breakfast.”

“He has no breath and no pulse, his pupils are completely fixed, and his skin is like a Yorkshire pudding that's been in the fridge. whatever good points he once had, they're all completely gone, along with his more predominant qualities.”

Laura leaned in for a closer look. “Yes, I see now. You're quite right. Oh, do you suppose this is—”

“Don't—,” began Reggie as she reached for the bronze, but it was too late.

“I'm only touching the edges,” she said, holding the bronze
quite gingerly in three slender fingers. She turned it base upward. One of the sharp corners at the heavy bottom edge was thick with recently congealed blood.

“Rather nasty,” said Laura.

“Yes,” said Reggie. “But let's leave it as we found it, shall we?”

“Of course,” said Laura.

She put the object back on the floor where she had found it. She regarded it for a moment, then said, “No, I think it was more like this.”

She adjusted it ever so slightly, then she stood and looked from Ocher's body to the mantel where the sculpture had been displayed.

“You don't suppose it could have simply—fallen on him, do you?” she asked.

“Not with that much force,” said Reggie.

Laura considered that. “I suppose then suicide is out of the question as well,” she said without much enthusiasm. Then, for a short moment, neither of them said anything.

“Well,” ventured Laura, “this might have been a burglar, and Ocher catching him.”

“Yes.”

“But if it was not a burglary, then the next likely scenario would be . . . well, Ocher is—was—a very unlikable man, any number of people might have wanted to bash him with something sharp and heavy.”

“In Nigel's office.”

“You'd bash him where you find him, I would think,” said Laura.

“Well, you're right about the unlikable part. But the geography is unfortunate.”

She gave that due consideration, then said, “Nigel could not have done it.”

“Of course not,” said Reggie.

“He would never abuse his Remington that way.”

“You're right,” said Reggie, “but I hope he's got a better alibi than that.”

“What's making that annoying hum?” said Laura.

Reggie listened. He knew the sound, but he was so accustomed to hearing it in Nigel's office that he hadn't noticed.

It was Nigel's computer. Reggie had assumed it was off, but he looked now and saw that, yes, the computer was still on. Only the monitor had been turned off.

Reggie pushed the monitor's button, and it began to flicker. Then the display came up, and right in the center was the text of an opened message. It was from Transcontinental Airlines. It read:

 

Thank you for confirming your reservation on:

Flight 2364 to Los Angeles

Departing at: 8:45
A.M.

Do you wish to perform another transaction?

YesNo

 

“Bloody hell,” said Reggie.

“Why on earth Los Angeles?” said Laura.

“The bloody letter,” said Reggie. “He's gone to Los Angeles over the bloody letter to Sherlock Holmes.”

Laura pondered that for a moment, then said, “And do we think that was before . . . Ocher was killed? Or after?”

Reggie looked at Laura, and they both grasped the implications of what she was asking.

“Of course it had to be before,” she said quickly.

“Yes, it must have been,” said Reggie. “Ocher heard something after Nigel was gone. He came in, around the desk, and
then someone concealed here, behind the file cabinet, struck him with the first object at hand.”

“Yes,” said Laura. “Because otherwise, if Ocher were here first, and Nigel came in after, that would mean it was Nigel who—”

She didn't try to finish that sentence, and now there was a knock at the door.

Ms. Brinks stuck her head in. “The police are here,” she said.

Reggie nodded to Laura in the direction of the corridor where the police were approaching.

“I'll just say hello to them,” she volunteered, and stepped out of the office, closing the door and taking Ms. Brinks with her.

Reggie knew he would be alone in the office only for a moment.

Nigel had gone to Los Angeles—but where?

Reggie turned to Nigel's filing cabinet. It had been gutted, all its hanging folders yanked out and their contents dumped on the floor.

He began to look about for the envelope in which Nigel had been keeping the letters. He didn't see it.

And then he did.

It was under Ocher. Under Ocher's left forearm, to be exact, as if for some reason he had been clutching it when struck.

That was disturbing.

Reggie reached down and tugged on the envelope—gently at first and then with a bit more force—to pull it out from under Ocher, just enough to look inside.

It was empty. The enclosures it had contained—which Reggie had refused to look at the other night—and the letters, including the letter writer's name and return address, which was almost certainly Nigel's destination—were gone.

Reggie could hear Laura trying to chat up the police outside in the corridor, but it apparently wasn't slowing them much; they were right outside the office now.

There was no time for anything more. Reggie gave the computer's plug at the wall outlet a quick nudge with his foot. The monitor's display crashed out in a hazy blitz of blue and black, and Reggie managed to step away and into the doorway just as the two officers—one of them a woman, which perhaps explained why Laura had not been able to delay them longer—pushed open the door.